


doubt comes in

by AMidnightDreary



Series: FrostIron Bingo [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Inspired by Hadestown, Inspired by Orpheus and Eurydice (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M, Sad Ending, but also happy ending when you only read the first half
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 07:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20831498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMidnightDreary/pseuds/AMidnightDreary
Summary: Everyone knows how this story goes, right?





	doubt comes in

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【霜铁授翻】怀疑doubt comes in](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22492282) by [FloraFangfei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloraFangfei/pseuds/FloraFangfei)

> Does anyone want some angst and feels? Because I've got some left.
> 
> I stole the title from Hadestown! If anyone wants a soundtrack for this, go ahead and listen to the song of the same name. xD
> 
> **Square filled: ** G1 - Mythology

If this was a happier story, it would go like this.

Loki doesn’t have anything to hold onto. There is a wall next to him, and he keeps his hand on the cold stone because that is the only way he knows where to go, but there is no hint of reality in that touch. The stone isn’t alive, and sometimes it feels like it gives in beneath his fingers, as if it isn’t stone at all. His steps echo and echo and echo from the walls. His breaths sound too loud in his ears. The air is stale, used up. His feet hurt from walking, and walking and walking and walking and walking...

He’s not alone down here.

He stops walking, now and then. He falls and ends up on his knees, grazed hands barely keeping him upright. His eyes pinched shut, he listens, and he hears another pair of feet somewhere behind him, so close, so close. They stop walking the split of a second after he falls, and there’s a sharp intake of breath; Loki stops breathing just to hear it, every time. He’s not alone down here. His hand fumbles for the wall and finds it, and Loki pulls himself back up onto his sore feet. He clenches his teeth until his knees stop wobbling, and then he starts walking again.

The way leads up. That’s the only thing Loki knows for sure. Up is where they need to go. They haven’t had a proper spring in so long, but maybe now - maybe now. They will see the sun again, somehow. It’s waiting for them at the end of this road.

Loki thinks about that. He thinks about seeing him for the first time, all over again. With his long coat and too big boots, a stolen backpack filled to the brim with maps and ideas. Wind-swept hair and tired eyes. He laughed when Loki smiled at him. 

_ I’m not what you’re looking for. _

_ How do you know what I am looking for? _

_ You’ve just got that sort of smile. I won’t stay here for long. _

_ You could stay with me. _

Straightforwardness never got Loki anywhere, before that. Tony called him crazy, and in the same breath - _ tell me more. _ Loki told him more. He told him everything. He’s always had a way with words. Stories come to him as easy as smiles, as easy as breathing. A gift from the gods, he’s been told, but he has never cared much for gods. He has never cared much for anyone, except for the man who is walking close behind him.

So close, now.

The air is getting cleaner. Loki can almost taste it. There is a ray of light falling through the darkness, and he lets the wall be and concentrates on that light instead. He has to lift his head, he can finally look up now and see something right there, above him. This is where he entered. Where he stood with a lantern in his trembling hands and looked down, down, down. He put the lantern down and let himself fall into it; his clothes are still ripped here and there.

His foot hits something that may or may not be his lantern. He leaves it where it is and starts to climb. It’s not high, but his hands are weak and his feet still hurt. He nearly falls two, three times. Sunlight blinds him. He latches onto the edge, pulls himself up and, just like that, leaves the underworld. 

Loki allows himself a few shaking breaths. Then he stands up on legs he doesn’t quite trust, and looks straight forward. There are flowers in front of him. From what he can see through the green crowns of trees, the sky is blue and vast. It’s spring. It’s _ spring. _

“Well,” says a rough voice behind him. “Let’s not do that again.”

Loki closes his eyes, and his legs give way under him. The forest ground is a soft thing to land on, and for a moment he just sits there with his eyes pinched shut, barely breathing. Then there are hands on his shoulders, pulling him close, against a chest that’s heaving just like Loki’s own. Loki clings to him, and loves and hates and loves him for being exactly how he is; Loki wouldn’t want him to be anything else.

Tony’s eyes are brown. They are still tired, and also a little wet now, but the soft crinkles around them say that he’s smiling, too. Sunlight catches on his hair, makes it look lighter than it is. Loki runs his hand through it, cups his face and breathes him in. 

“I’d do it again,” Loki says, with a voice that’s just as rough. “I’d do everything again.”

Tony’s smile widens as he holds onto Loki in return, touches whatever part of him he can reach. He lets out a sound that’s hovering somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “You’d follow me again?”

“Anywhere,” Loki vows, and kisses him.

It’s spring.

This is not a happy story.

Loki doesn’t have anything to hold onto. There is a wall next to him, and he keeps his hand on the cold stone because that is the only way he knows where to go, but there is no hint of reality in that touch. The stone isn’t alive, and sometimes it feels like it gives in beneath his fingers, as if it isn’t stone at all. His steps echo and echo and echo from the walls. His breaths sound too loud in his ears. The air is stale, used up. His feet hurt from walking, and walking and walking and walking and walking...

It’s so dark down here.

The ground is uneven, and Loki has fallen so often already that he lost count. The silence is unforgiving. He stays on his sore knees for too long, this time, digs his hands into rocks that nearly cut his skin. His own breaths are too loud. Loki can’t hear anything else. There isn’t anything else, no matter how hard he tries to listen. He is in the middle of a void that swallows every sound, every light. It’s so dark down here. Loki’s hand searches for the wall and doesn’t find it at first, his fingers are so numb that they can’t feel anything. He starts walking again, eventually.

Nobody knows this road. Nobody can say where it leads, not even Loki, who took it once before, into the other direction. He doesn’t remember anything of this, so maybe it isn’t the right road at all. Maybe it won’t bring him up. Maybe it will bring him back.

Loki thinks about that. So many empty eyes. Shoulders bumping into his, heads turning in reaction to his words only briefly, then turning away again, always turning away again. It took so long to find him. And it’s all Loki’s fault; he wasn’t there when he should have been. Too distracted by the words in his own head, always. 

_ You can’t live from your stories, you know. _

_ Watch me. _

_ I can’t spend the whole winter watching you. I need work. _

_ It’s winter. You won’t find any work around here. _

_ Then maybe I’ll have to look somewhere else. _

Loki should never have smiled at Tony in the first place. He knew it wouldn’t turn out well. His smiles are like his stories; they lure people in. They fascinate them. They cut them. Of course Tony left, everybody would have. And who does Loki think he is? Why would Tony follow him, why would he even _ want _ to follow him? Loki told the king a pretty story, nothing more. He can’t give Tony anything else.

It’s so pointless, all of this.

Loki sees the exit. No light reaches him, down here; maybe it is night up there. He’s so sick of darkness. He starts climbing, and stops shortly before he reaches the edge. His forehead against the cold stone, he listens and listens, his heart beating so hard in his chest that he feels like it will stutter and stop any moment. He can’t hear anything. There’s nothing, nothing, nothing -

Tony’s eyes are brown. They are also very wide now, and desperate, shocked understanding creeping into them. Loki is looking down at him as well as he can, going dizzy when he realizes what he has done, and Tony is just standing there, below him. Still on the ground, with his arms outstretched. Ready to catch Loki, should he fall. And Loki does fall.

But when he lands, Tony is already gone.


End file.
